b'lowland (NSIC Rc 622, Rc 624, and Rc 626,) and five special-pur-pose pigmented non-glutinous (NSIC Rc 638 SR, Rc 640 SR, RcSTATUS SOUTH AFRICA642 SR, Rc 644 SR, and Rc 646 SR). The other seven are IRRI-bred: five are for irrigated lowland (NSIC Rc 628, Rc 630, Rc 632, Rc 634,The African BioGenome Project (AfricaBP) published a position and Rc 636), one zinc-biofortified (Rc 648), and one for rainfedpaper in the journal Nature highlighting the goals, priorities, lowland (Rc 650). and roadmap of the impressive Africa-led effort to sequence the With these new rice varieties, we are providing more optionsgenomes of plants, animals, fungi, and protists that are endemic to farmers as to what variety is most suited to their farms con- to the continent of Africa.ditions so they can further increase their production and achieveProfessor Nicola Mulder head of the Computational Biology the best quality of their produce, Dr. Oliver E. Manangkil of thedivision at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Principal Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research InstituteInvestigator of H3ABioNet an institutional partner to AfricaBP, is (DA-PhilRice) said. one of three advisory board members to this important project.These new varieties will be introduced to farmers throughFollowing its pilot launch in June 2021, AfricaBP now hosts techno-demo farms under the various extension programs of109 African scientists and 22 African organisations, representing DA-PhilRice and its branch stations. researchers, institutions and corporations from all five regions in the African Union. AfricaBP is a partner to three comple-mentary large-scale, global genomic efforts including the 10,000 STATUS UKRAINE Plants Genomes Project (10KP), the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), and the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP). Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last month, potato mar-kets in Europe have been somewhat resistant with uncertainty expected for the upcoming months, a March 21 news release from the North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) says.So far there has been no reasons for much change in free buy potato prices or sales of processed products in the European Union and abroad. The release notes processing activity in the NEPG zone is running at capacity. However, theres also uncer-tainty regarding frying oil availability and costs for the coming growing season. There are logistical difficulties for shipping and related higher costs, the release says. EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 43'